RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)


    • Israel Could Solve Its PR Problem By Simply Ceasing To Be Evil

      Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
      by Caitlin Johnstone

      “Israel’s +972 Magazine reports that the Israeli military establishment has launched a training program designed to ‘influence public consciousness’ around the world, with courses aimed at training hundreds of operatives per year in strategies for ‘actively disrupting or manipulating the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of target audiences.’ … It’s such a trip how Zionists just take it as a given that the only way to improve public perception of Israel is to ramp up efforts to manipulate the thoughts people think about it. They never give serious attention to the possibility that Israel would have a lot more public approval if it stopped fucking murdering innocent civilians all the time and fucking torturing people and raping captives with trained rape dogs. Israel can’t possibly be wrong; only our thoughts about Israel can be wrong.” (06/06/26)

      https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/06/06/israel-could-solve-its-pr-problem-by-simply-ceasing-to-be-evil/

    • Civilizations Are Transaction Costs

      Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
      by Vladyslav Manzyuk

      “A state works when its formal institutions align with and reinforce the informal order beneath it. It fails when it overrides that order. Yugoslavia assembled populations whose informal institutions — Austro-Hungarian civil law in Slovenia and Croatia, historically distinct legal traditions further east, shaped by Ottoman frameworks, distinct religious frameworks governing commercial obligation — had long created high transaction costs across the same lines the state tried to erase. Iraq assembled three distinct Ottoman administrative provinces. Borders do not erase gradients. These are not failures of tolerance or political will — and it is worth noting that no amount of well-intentioned, constitution-drafting has ever repealed an institutional gradient. They are the predictable outcome of a constructed order imposed on an incompatible spontaneous one, which pushes back through informal markets, parallel institutions, and eventually political fragmentation.” (06/06/26)

      https://mises.org/mises-wire/civilizations-are-transaction-costs

    • A financial catastrophe is looming. America forgot to care.

      Source: Washington Post
      by Matthew Lynn

      “The price that the U.S. government has to pay to borrow money for 30 years has already punched through 5 percent a year, its highest level since the financial crisis of 2007. For 10-year money, the annual price is 4.6 percent and climbing. Amid all the noise about the rise of artificial intelligence and the booming space economy, something far more significant is happening in the financial markets. The cost of borrowing is being reset. And that raises some intriguing questions. Could the politics of deficit reduction stage a comeback? And are voters in any mood to pay attention if it does?” (06/05/26)

      https://archive.is/AFyZt

    • Child’s play is more than just that

      Source: Christian Science Monitor
      by staff

      “As schools across the United States let out for summer vacation, more parents and policymakers are trying to make sure kids can get out there and just be kids – by stepping away from screens, playing in the open air, or biking to a friend’s house or the local store. And, they say, kids should be allowed to do all of this without a parent hovering over them – or that parent being held liable for not doing so. In May, the U.S. House introduced a bipartisan bill to promote ‘childhood independence and protect parents who allow their children to play outside unsupervised, get off screens, and develop social skills.’ Earlier this year, Indiana became the 13th state to pass a measure shielding parents from child neglect allegations for certain unsupervised activities.” (06/05/26)

      https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0605/Child-s-play-is-more-than-just-that

    • AI’s Facelessness Risks Soullessness — and With It Liberalism

      Source: The UnPopulist
      by Michal G Holzman

      “Progress and technological development brought the atom bomb and death camps, too. To some extent the mid-century crisis led to an expansion of liberalism under the umbrella of U.S. global hegemony. The question of the 1940s Civil Rights Movement — ‘How can we fight for human equality overseas and then return home to Jim Crow?’ — became the philosophical underpinning for massively expanded access to the liberal project. The universal message of human dignity was on the march, literally and figuratively. It extended its reach across lines of race, religion, sex, and sexuality in ways that would have been practically unimaginable a generation before. But even as liberalism expanded it was being undercut. In response to both the perverted turn of modernity and the creeping spread of a postmodern nihilism, traditionalism grew, and people began to give up on progress and retreat into pre-modern bubbles of ritual, isolated community, and centralized authority.” (06/05/26)

      https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/ais-facelessness-risks-soullessnessand

    • The Curse of Being a Historian

      Source: Town Hall
      by Mark Lewis

      “I’m sorry, folks. I really, truly wish I could be an optimist. I wish I could write positive articles, telling us that America’s golden days are yet to come, that a bright and shining tomorrow awaits our nation, and the reasons are A, B, C, X, Y, Z. I sincerely wish I could do that. But I’m a historian, and as much as that, a student of the Bible. I have degrees in both subjects, have taught both for literally half a century, and have written thousands of articles in each field. I confess, such tends to make me cynical. But maybe, just maybe, America’s best days do still lie ahead of her; I’m a historian, not a prophet. Yet, to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t have a lot of hope, and history is the reason why.” (06/06/26)

      https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2026/06/06/the-curse-of-being-a-historian-n2677332

    • The Myth of the K-Shaped Economy

      Source: CounterPunch
      by David S D’Amato

      “The corporate press has a new obsession, the so-called K-shaped economy. This metaphor is meant to describe a system in which one group of people, represented by the top, inclining line of the K, watches their fortunes rise as the other group’s fortunes fall. The idea is that Americans who are already doing well financially are doing better, while conditions worsen for those already struggling to make ends meet. The problem is that when we use this letter K shorthand, we lose almost all of the information that’s important to analyzing the broader problem, and we therefore help an extremely concentrated ruling class hide the truth of what has happened.” (06/05/26)

      https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/06/05/the-myth-of-the-k-shaped-economy/

    • Without a US-Iran Peace Deal, World Headed for Energy Crisis Apocalypse

      Source: Informed Comment
      by Juan Cole

      “The International Energy Agency has made its May report free to download, and the news is not good for the second and third quarters of this year, i.e. April-September. The IEA hopes things will look up in the fourth quarter, but premises that expectation on an early end to the US conflict with Iran and a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. At the moment (June 5, 2026), there does not seem much movement on that front, and in fact the US and Iran are not only skirmishing with one another but Iran is making good its threat to hurt US allies like Bahrain and Kuwait every time the US hurts Iran. One was killed and dozens injured in Kuwait on Wednesday by Iranian Shahed drone barrages that also damaged the airport. Kuwait Airlines shut down briefly but is now flying from a different terminal; it is the only carrier flying from Kuwait.” (06/05/26)

      https://www.juancole.com/2026/06/operational-without-hormuz.html

    • Ayn Rand’s Italian Debut

      Source: Law & Liberty
      by Robert Steven Mack

      “If Zohran Mamdani intended to come across as an Ayn Rand villain when he pledged to ‘“replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism,’ he succeeded. Unfortunately, socialism continues to appeal to young people on the left, as both parties jettison free market principles. If there is one author who has inspired young people to think differently about these big ideas, it is Ayn Rand, who is remembered as the author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. While the philosophical system she created, Objectivism, remains at the fringe of culture and academia, her moral defence of capitalism has inspired figures such as former Speaker Paul Ryan and former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan. Yet one of her lesser-known books, We the Living, deserves more attention than it gets.” (06/05/26)

      https://lawliberty.org/ayn-rands-italian-debut/

    • How misology stole our humanity

      Source: UnHerd
      by Jacob Howland

      “Man, Nietzsche wrote, is ‘the unfinished animal.’ He meant that nature goes only so far in shaping human beings. We become who we are through the distinctively human capacity to produce and understand speech. That’s why Aristotle called us the animal that possesses logos, whose meanings include everything from word to speech, thought to reason, order to logic, proportion to account. This extraordinary semantic richness tries to capture the manifold articulate intelligence that makes us human — an intelligence that, in the first instance, answers to the nature and shape of things as they present themselves to our minds. But today, logos — and therefore our humanity — is under intellectual, political, technological attack. It’s not that people have stopped talking. Rather, the difference between speech and what Aristotle called ‘voice’ (phōnē) — the verbal expression not of reason, thought, and judgment, but emotion — is rapidly being effaced.” (06/05/26)

      https://archive.is/axdnI

    • The Shocking Damage Caused by Covid Policies

      Source: Brownstone Institute
      by Ian Miller

      “The Covid lockdowns may not have been remotely effective, but at least they harmed millions of people and created long-lasting negative impacts that we’re still dealing with today. That’s the conclusion of a massive new body of research into the nonsensical policies promoted by the public health ‘expert’ class, promoted by their media partners, and enacted by incompetent, cowardly politicians.” (06/05/26)

      https://brownstone.org/articles/the-shocking-damage-caused-by-covid-policies/

    • Henry Nowak’s murder exposes Britain’s dangerous two-tier justice system

      Source: Fox News
      by Simon Hankinson

      “Before George Floyd, before Michael Brown, there was Trayvon Martin. Back in 2012, the 17-year-old was shot and killed during a struggle with another young man in a Florida gated community. The tragedy that day was discussed in the national media and eventually adjudicated in a court of law. When the trial was over, President Barack Obama said, ‘When Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son.’ In December, an 18-year-old college student was stabbed by another young man in Southampton, England. The victim’s name was Henry Nowak. The American press ignored the story. The British press and politicians largely did too. Like Obama, I thought, this could have been my son.” (06/06/26)

      https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/henry-nowaks-killing-exposes-britains-dangerous-two-tier-justice-system

    • How Bari Weiss’s Free Press laundered MAGA talking points about refugees

      Source: The Watch
      by Radley Balko

      “Of course, Weiss understands perfectly well the moment we’re in. She knows she wasn’t put in charge of CBS News because of her skeptical nature or keen journalistic eye. She was put in charge because she has shown that she can leverage a carefully crafted image as an iconoclast and teller of truths to launder MAGA propaganda so that it’s more palatable to centrists. She was put in charge because the Ellisons need Trump’s blessing for their mega merger – and if ever there was a favor tailor-made to win Trump’s approval, it’s kneecapping a major news network and toppling one of the last remaining pillars of broadcast journalism in the process. Weiss has positioned herself and her publications as bold disruptors, then leveraged that image to legitimize some of Trump’s worst rhetoric and policies. And few issues better demonstrate that pattern than immigration.” (06/05/26)

      https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/how-bari-weisss-free-press-laundered

    • Why Those in Political Power Are in a Hurry

      Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
      by Richard M Ebeling

      “Those in political power always seem to be in a hurry. It is not surprising that their time horizons for ‘action’ never extend more than a few years ahead of them, though for different reasons. If it is a dictatorship, the tyrant in power can never be sure when an assassin’s bullet might cut his life short, or if some of his ‘loyal’ followers may be conspiring to overthrow him and replace him with one of their own. … why is it the case that in America today (and in most other modern democratic countries), those who hold political office seem so much in a hurry with short-term horizons guiding their actions, in their own way similar to dictatorships?” (06/05/26)

      https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/why-those-in-political-power-are-in-a-hurry/

    • War, Arrogance, and the Unraveling of US Power

      Source: Antiwar.com
      by Nii Lantey Bortey

      “The United States is not approaching collapse because it lacks power. It is approaching collapse because it has too often mistaken power for wisdom. Its armed forces remain unmatched in reach, its financial system remains central to global commerce, and its technology sector continues to shape the future. Yet these advantages can conceal a more dangerous condition: the erosion of judgment. A superpower begins to decay when it treats coercion as strategy, military reach as political authority, and exemption from rules as evidence of strength. The result is not immediate collapse, but a cumulative weakening of legitimacy, fiscal discipline, institutional trust, and strategic clarity.” (06/05/26)

      https://original.antiwar.com/nii_lantey_bortey/2026/06/04/war-arrogance-and-the-unraveling-of-us-power

    • Congress Must End Ticketmaster’s Monopoly

      Source: Common Dreams
      by Joe Garcia

      “If you’ve ever been to a concert or sporting event, you’ve probably dealt with Ticketmaster. And if you have, you’ve probably overpaid. Ticketmaster is the closest thing the live events industry has to a monopoly. It controls the ticketing market at most major American venues and has used that power to squeeze fans with higher prices and limit competition, ultimately making live entertainment more expensive for everyone. That is why recent legal action against Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, was so encouraging. A jury ruled in April that it is an operating illegal monopoly. Remedies will follow; the question is when. Fans should not have to skip seeing their favorite band, team, or performer because a monopolistic corporation has found another way to extract money from them.” (06/06/26)

      https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/congress-ticketmaster

    • Section 301 “Forced Labor” Tariffs Would Dangerously Expand Executive Power

      Source: The Daily Economy
      by Bryan Riley

      “The White House has yet another rationale for tariffs, and it’s another attack on the separation of powers.” (06/05/26)

      https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/section-301-forced-labor-tariffs-would-dangerously-expand-executive-power/

    • Goodbye To All That

      Source: Persuasion
      by Harry Cheadle

      “I don’t know if anyone but me noticed, but digital media died last month. In mid-May, a media mogul named Byron Allen bought a majority stake in BuzzFeed, which has been culturally invisible and financially struggling since shutting down its news division in 2023 and pivoting to AI content. Just weeks later, Vox Media, a collection of brands including New York Magazine, sold its more valuable properties to Lupa Systems CEO James Murdoch, the younger son of Rupert Murdoch. Companies like Vice and Vox were hailed as the future of media in the 2010s, standard-bearers of a new generation of youth-focused, internet-savvy publications that would take over from the New York Times and CNN.” (06/05/26)

      https://www.persuasion.community/p/a-requiem-for-the-digital-media-era

    • Bravo, Bezos!

      Source: Free Association
      by Sheldon Richman

      “When an American businessman defends the large fortunes made — that is, earned — in the marketplace, it’s something to celebrate. Jeff Bezos, the creator and head of Amazon.com, did just that in a recent wide-ranging interview on CNBC’s Squawk Pod with host Andrew Ross Sorkin on May 20, 2026. While his remarks on political philosophy did not go far enough in defending the morality of money-making, they went farther than anything we have heard from a businessman in quite some time, if ever. In this age of rampant anti-rich bigotry — when prominent politicians, darlings of much of the old and new media, say that should not exist — Bezos’s remarks are refreshing indeed.” (06/05/26)

      https://sheldonrichman.substack.com/p/tgif-bravo-bezos

    • Democrats’ Supreme Court threat puts the United States in mortal danger

      Source: New York Post
      by Rich Lowry

      “In 2016, the conservative writer Michael Anton made a galvanizing case for Donald Trump in his famous essay ‘The Flight 93 Election,’ arguing that the stakes in the presidential contest between Trump and Hillary Clinton were existential. His contention that a Clinton win would cement Democratic electoral dominance forever — such that Republicans needed to charge the cockpit or die — was implausible at the time, and seems more so in retrospect. If Hillary had won in 2016, in all likelihood she would have been gone in 2020, washed away by the pandemic just like Trump was. This time, though, really might be different. Democrats are now seriously contemplating measures that wouldn’t have occurred to Hillary Clinton circa 2016. Endorsing some version of Supreme Court packing (or ‘court reform’ as Democrats insist on calling it) is becoming orthodoxy among mainstream Democrats.” (06/05/26)

      https://nypost.com/2026/06/05/opinion/democrats-supreme-court-threat-puts-the-us-in-mortal-danger/

    • The Nerve of Some People

      Source: Common Sense
      by Paul Jacob

      “‘Police warn families of Tiananmen crackdown dead not to visit graves on 37th anniversary,’ reads the headline of yesterday’s story in New York’s Newsday. How rude of those families! How dare they show such utter disregard for the right of the Chinese Communist Party to ‘grind you up and crush your bones!’ Or to have your ‘heads bashed bloody,’ as CCP top Pooh Bear Xi Jinping has more recently been fond of saying. Especially after all the trouble Xi and Chinese authorities have gone to easing all this unnecessary tension by facilitating a thoughtful and therapeutic four-decade ‘campaign to erase what happened from public memory.'” (06/05/26)

      https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/06/05/the-nerve-of-some-people/

    • It’s My Party and I’ll Die If I Want To

      Source: Quillette
      by Rosalind Arden

      “The most consequential weakness of philosopher and journalist Kathleen Stock’s new polemic against assisted dying is its failure to engage with the empirical record.” (06/05/26)

      https://quillette.com/2026/06/05/its-my-party-and-ill-die-if-i-want-to-do-not-go-gentle-the-case-against-assisted-death-kathleen-stock-review/

    • The Wages of Economic Warfare

      Source: The American Conservative
      by Anik Joshi

      “The traditional blowback from Middle Eastern adventures has been in terms of refugee inflows and a less stable, more risky MENA region that produces knock-on effects across the European political frame. Going beyond destabilizing Europe to destabilizing the entire world as a function of Middle Eastern wars is unlikely to win converts to the Western cause, unless they share its dedication to their own destruction.” (06/05/26)

      https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-wages-of-economic-warfare/

    • Can Democrats Learn From the 2024 Loss?

      Source: The American Prospect
      by Dylan Gyauch-Lewis

      “After months of speculation and anger, the Democratic National Committee finally released its autopsy of the party’s loss in the 2024 presidential election just before Memorial Day weekend. Despite pledging to release the document publicly when first elected to lead the Democratic Party’s organizational arm in early 2025, DNC Chair Ken Martin reversed course in December of last year, announcing that the report would not be published. Why? Some speculated it was merely a way for party insiders to avoid accountability for their failures; many others that it showed Kamala Harris lost because of her refusal to disavow Joe Biden’s policy toward Israel. As it turns out, the coverup was due to a much more banal and embarrassing reason: Martin’s friend whom he hired to complete the report turned in a pile of garbage.” (06/05/26)

      https://prospect.org/2026/06/05/can-democrats-learn-from-2024-loss-biden-harris-dnc/

    • The Tom Woods Show, episode 2767

      Source: The Tom Woods Show

      “What the New Fed Chair Means for Your Pocketbook.” (06/05/26)

      https://tomwoods.com/ep-2767-what-the-new-fed-chair-means-for-your-pocketbook/

    • Social Constructs and Spontaneous Order

      Source: EconLog
      by Max Molden

      “‘Social construction’ is prominent: we are told in various places that this or that is a ‘social construct’: think of gender, race, or money. One book that played a central role in the emergence of that concept is Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s 1966 The Social Construction of Reality. That work can proudly claim more than 90,000 citations as of today — only in its English version, that is. Its influence within sociology, and then beyond, is thus enormous. … social constructivism shares roots with Austrian school thinking. Somewhere along the way, however, a fine but crucial distinction has been blurred within social constructivist thought.” (06/05/26)

      https://www.econlib.org/econlog/social-constructs-and-spontaneous-order